Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday took part in a rare commemoration service for the hundreds of thousands of Jews killed in Belarus under Nazi occupation in World War II.
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Workers rebuilding sports stadium on site of 18th century Jewish cemetery say they have no choice but to consign bones to city dumps. Critics say it is part of pattern of callous indifference toward Belarus' Jewish heritage that was prevalent when country was a Soviet republic and hasn't changed |
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"Ideas of xenophobia and ethnic injustice should never be celebrated.... The principles of humanism and goodwill carry great importance for Belarussians," Lukashenko told a gathering in the centre of Minsk, the Belarussian capital, by a pit where more than 5,000 Jews were shot by Nazi forces.
"One mustn't forget these tragic events. If we forget them, they could be repeated," he said.
In attendance were Israeli MK Avigdor Lieberman, representatives from the Jewish Agency and diplomatic officials.
Altogether more than 800 000 Jews were exterminated in Belarus during World War II, including 50.000 Jews forcibly displaced from central and western European countries.
The comments by President Lukashenko, who has been ostracized by the United States as Europe's "last dictator," represented a dramatic about-face on the subject of the Holocaust.
Hitherto, he had stuck to a Soviet policy of not differentiating the fate of Jews in World War II from general
Soviet losses, leaving a veil over Nazi Germany's special targeting of Jews.
In October 2007, the Belarussian president was accused by Israel of making blatant anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli statements. Commenting on the state radio the "miserable state of the city of Babruysk,” he said: "This is a Jewish city and the Jews are not concerned for the place they live in. They have turned Babruysk into a pigsty. Look at Israel – I was there and saw it myself.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry protested officially but Lukashenko rejected accusations of anti-Semitism.
Yael Branovsky contributed to this report
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